Connecting Ubuntu 8.x/9.x to eduroam (Utrecht)

First of all, if you’re dutch, read this. If you’re not dutch, read it anyways. It’s the official page of the ICT department over here and, I must say, it was very well revamped. Kudos to you guys. This small how-to is just a translation of that page with some pictures attached.

My machine is an Asus F6V with a fresh install of Ubuntu 8.04 (LTS). But I suppose this would work in any version upstream. In the page they guarantee anything up from 7.10 works. So, boot up your laptop and…

Select “Connect to Other Wireless Network” when left-clicking the Network Manager applet.

Select “WPA2-Enterprise” for Wireless Security and fill in the fields accordingly

EDIT: In 8.10 and probably beyond, there is a PEAP Version field that defaults to “Version 1”. It won’t work with that one. I had to set it to “Version 0”.

In “Identity” and “Password” type in your solis-ID followed by @soliscom.uu.nl and your solis-Password. Then you have to select the right CA Certificate File. Clicking in the area written “None” will open a browser window to search for your certificate. The little fellow is in /usr/share/ca-certificates/mozilla and it’s called Equifax Secure CA.crt.

Select the Equifax Secure CA certificate in the path shown above.

Click “Open”, which will close that window (geek humor), then click “Connect”. Wait a couple of seconds for those two green lights to come alive and that’s it. Enjoy!

If I’d have to guess, I’d say any other university is the same, maybe with different Authentication Methods (U. Coimbra I know it’s TTLS/PAP) and certificates (Coimbra takes none). Check your university ICT department page and try to fish this info. Then just alter what you need and it should work.